Photo: B. Bakkane
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Our world is a separated one. Separated into two parts, the rich in the north and the poor in the south. And we - the rich ones - want to help. Our aim: development. It was easy to define "development aid": We, the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere, help and the people in the southern part of this world are supposed to develop. However, there has been a shift in consciousness and perception: we, the northerners, have learnt that "helping" is a process of interaction and mutuality. We do not dispose of any "native" knowledge about what is good for others. This is more or less how we helped farmers, with the best of intentions, to change from traditional cultivation to monoculture - with all its commercial and ecological problems.
Joint development work implies that we have to give our opinion on questions such as: Do we really want to co-operate? Who are our partners? Do others actually want our participation and if so, in what form?
The editorial team are agreed that joint development work always has a political element. We hope that this is what we can offer you in this magazine, namely to give our opinion!